Cold weather made for hot ratings on Sunday in Green Bay. Even in Charlotte, where the team that defeated Green Bay, the San Francisco 49ers, will face the Carolina Panthers in a divisional match-up Jan. 12.

Nielsen Media Research estimates 639,950 people in Charlotte watched the San Francisco-Green Bay wild-card playoff game yesterday afternoon, an audience that trails only the Panthers’ Nov. 18 Monday Night Football appearance (656,320 local viewers) during the 2013-14 NFL season. There are 2.8 million viewers and 1.2 million TV households in the Charlotte market, the 25th-largest in the U.S.

Pro football dominates national and local TV ratings. In Charlotte, as in most cities, the home team generates the best ratings and most viewers, but, as the Packers-49ers game shows, playoff games take interest to a much higher level. Expect another spike this weekend with the Panthers in the post-season for the first time in five years. Fox affiliate WJZY will air the game; kick-off is at 1 p.m.

Charlotte viewers displayed a definite National Football Conference bias for the opening weekend of NFL playoff games. (The Panthers play in the NFC, the conference aligned with Fox. Rival network CBS, and its local affiliates such as Charlotte’s WBTV, holds rights to the American Football Conference. There are exceptions, including inter-conference regular-season games and separate deals with ESPN, NBC and the NFL Network.) On Saturday, the NFC wild-card game pitting the New Orleans Saints against the Philadelphia Eagles was watched by 473,540 people in Charlotte. WCNC, the NBC affiliate, showed the game as part of NBC’s contract to air one playoff doubleheader. Earlier in the day, WCNC had the Indianapolis Colts-Kansas City Chiefs shootout (350,230 viewers), won by the Colts, 45-44.

WBTV’s San Diego Chargers-Cincinnati Bengals game on Sunday was watched by 407,370 in Charlotte. Nothing else in sports TV — and likely nothing in entertainment, either — will surpass those figures for the week.

Nielsen also measures ratings, defined as the number of people watching a particular program out of all the potential households with TVs. For the 2013 regular season, the Panthers finished with an average of 26.3 in Charlotte, one-tenth of a point from tying the franchise’s season-best 26.4 in 2006. Carolina entered the league in 1995.

For an idea of how much of an increase in interest can be expected for the playoffs, the Panthers’ last post-season appearance, a blowout loss to the Arizona Cardinals in January 2009, garnered a rating of 37 — a figure 41 percent higher than the 2013 regular-season average for Panthers’ games.

Karen Adams, vice president and general manager at WJZY, told me Monday the playoff game and interest throughout the season exceeded expectations. Last summer, the station, newly acquired by Fox’s parent company, became a Fox affiliate. NFL, NASCAR and Major League Baseball broadcast rights were mentioned as one of the main advantages at the time. When WJZY hosted a cocktail party to meet advertisers and others in the area, it chose Bank of America Stadium as the setting.

Adams said the station will follow the network coverage (one-hour pregame, the game itself and 30 minutes of post-game) with a locally produced, 30-minute segment from the stadium. Throughout the week, the Fox affiliate is also promoting Panthers-related stories and giveaways on its Facebook page and other online outlets.

In raw numbers, TV audiences surpassed 500,000 people for the Panthers during the last seven weeks of 2013. That includes 576,580 viewers for the season finale on Dec. 29 in Atlanta (also on WJZY). Other games during the final regular-season weekend: Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia on Sunday Night Football (WCNC, 323,430), New Orleans-Tampa Bay Buccaneers (WJZY, 230,420) and the WBTV doubleheader of Baltimore Ravens-Cincinnati (44,930) and Buffalo Bills-New England Patriots (159,770).

The Tigers defeated Ohio State in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 3, with 270,000 people watching the game on ESPN in Charlotte. Two days earlier, the Gamecocks enjoyed a New Year’s Day victory over Wisconsin in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando (WSOC, 234,110 viewers).

Other favorites in Charlotte during bowl season: the Rose Bowl (ESPN, Michigan State-Stanford, 221,680 people watching) and the Sugar Bowl (ESPN, Oklahoma-Alabama, 213,840). Charlotte’s college game, the Belk Bowl, played on Dec. 28, was watched by 103,700 locally on ESPN as North Carolina defeated Cincinnati. It was the Tar Heels’ first bowl win since 2010, a span that has been filled with investigations and allegations regarding the football program.